Breville Dual Boiler with Smart Grinder BES920 / BCG820 Questions & Answers (page 5 of 5)

Yes it usually does. I already had a grinder so I bought mine without the grinder.

So we have asked the store and they said it was part of a promo that finished in May. But other different stores still have it together. So should we have gotten one with it or not? It's from JB HI FI.

I did exactly the same thing. I went through the descaling, which is quite complicated I thought, and the steamer ceased to operate. It may be that the instructions need changing.
The repairer found that the boiler heating element had broken. I suspect that, like your machine, the boiler did not fill and therefore when I switched on the machine the element burned out through lack of water.
I understand that the heating element is integral with the boiler so that a new boiler is required.
Breville took 10 weeks to finally advise that the new boiler was on back order.
Breville recently changed premises and their computer system and it seems they are unable to cope with the supply of spare parts for many weeks.
My advice is to take the machine to the place where you bought it for repair under warranty. They are responsible for the repair since your contract is with them. Do not take it to a repairer yourself.
I suggest you ask the shop to loan you a replacement of some sort. Their repairer may be able to do this. If there is still a delay by Breville, ask for a new machine.
Breville Customer Service Consultant Matthew in NSW is helpful
Kind Regards

Question for Jaymac.
What happened with your steamer problem? Repaired or machine replaced?

They were able to repair. I had a great experience with their customer service. They paid shipping and packaging both ways and were very responsive to my emails. It took 4 weeks round trip, but my machine is working great. The only complaint I have is that they never informed me as to what the issue was, so I don't know what happened.

Thanks for the link. That's pretty much what I am doing but my steam wand is nothing like the one in the video. The one on my machine is considerably shorter and a plain tube - i.e. the opening as the same diameter as the tube. When inserted into the milk it coughs and splutters (sound like its throwing stones into the jug!) and splatters milk everywhere!

Looking closer at the machine, looks like the end of the steam wand is missing. It was not on my machine when I unpacked it and is not in the box (which I have kept). Any ideas?

Hi Krys
See my reply to Chop above. It seems the standard reply from Breville is freshness of the beans. In my opinion freshness of beans only has relevance to the taste of the coffee.

I’m an espresso machine newbie. My background is science so this is my attempt to understand what is happening.

When I started my first attempt was lucky to reach 3psi and watery coffee even grinding as fine as possible. After attending the training course that came packaged with the machine (and grinder), I threw out the branded supermarket beans and bought from a local coffee shop and followed pretty much the instructions above and suddenly I had 9 to 9.5psi and syrupy coffee.

My take is that the steam/boiling water has to force its way through the compacted ground beans. Older beans are drier and less elastic and don’t compact properly, hence the steam can get around through the gaps between the particles. The same problem occurs if you use too coarse a grind or if you don’t tap the portafilter vigorously to ensure there are no hollows or if you don’t tamp the ground beans down as tightly as possible.

The course instructor said (from memory) the beans should be a minimum of 2 weeks from roasting up to (?) 3 months - and they need to vent during this process.
For the record, I have switched to the much cheaper (around a quarter of the price of the coffee shop) Aldi “crafted in Melbourne” beans. The packaging comes with a vent hole and the product started appearing on the shelves around Easter 2015. The use-by date suggests that the stock is roasted about 2 to 3 weeks prior to it arriving on the shelves, which fits what the course instructor said. I’ve had a number of compliments on the taste.

I cant speak about all breville machines - but I can say that the BES-920 machine which I have has a double boiler which means I never run out of steam pressure for milk texturing or running another shot, which I have found to be very adequate. Additionally a digital temperature setting for heat preference and a built-in temperature control PID which is an over-ride for conventional slow to react thermostats (found on most/all coffee machines) means it never loses heat or goes cold between shots and there is no lengthy queuing (waiting for the machine to reheat) in my home in the mornings - more time for more important things... Its not fully automatic which means you are expected to contribute to the outcome but I find its clever technology will help you make a consistently very good quality product at home for about a third the top shelf price.
Hope this helps.

The basket we use is for one coffee, the grinder we use is Breville BCG800, some times we may use different type of coffee thanks to answer back. Charles Schembri

Hi Schembri, Possibly you need to change your water tank filter if that has not been done. The weather can affect things too (higher humidity = less flow) so maybe you need to adjust grind or quantity accordingly. Hope this helps. Bob.